


To the Victor

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: Awkward Dates, First Dates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 10:01:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21116903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: Against his better judgement, Baralai has agreed to attend a charity auction to help finance an attempt to restore Macalania Woods. Unfortunately, he wasn't expecting feelings to rear their ugly head when a certain Al Bhed takes the stage.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Welsper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welsper/gifts).

A date auction was certainly not the zaniest idea that High Summoner Yuna had ever backed. Honestly, when compared to some of the other hijinks she’d gotten into since she first became a summoner it was practically a tame experience. Still, even in a post-Yevon Spira it was an idea that was talked about with no small amount of wonder. It didn’t help that they’d booked the Luca stadium for the production and enlisted Gippal’s Machine Faction to handle all the lights and sound. 

It’s not quite the affair that Yuna’s impromptu Thunder Plains concert was—it’s bigger. The cause is a worthy one: a coalition of minds from all over Spira have come together to develop a solution to the rapid fading of Macalania Woods. The forest had been an important landmark for too many generations to count. Even with the terrible pall of what Yu Yevon and the Fayth had done for so long hanging over them, no one wanted to see those woods fade away into nothing. If they had only advertised the auction for a week half of Spira would have turned up.

They advertised for a month.

The stadium was so packed they had to turn people away at the doors. Such a crowd hadn’t been seen since Sin was finally defeated. Even more impressive was the number of spectators compared to the number of bidders. After all, there still weren’t a lot of people with gil to throw around. Rebuilding took time and capital, and most of the citizens were very dedicated in seeing all they had to spare allocated to the myriad efforts to improve the world at large. One would think that watching other people spend money wouldn’t be an entertaining viewing experience, but that assumption was far from the truth. 

The bidders were located in the rows closest to the stage that had been created at the stadium’s center. They were a mixed bunch of the wealthy and the socially elite. The Lady Yuna herself had a seat for when she wasn’t on the auction block, along with many of her friends and former Guardians. Blitzball players, commentators, government figures, and folk of all kinds were set to be sold for a purported “dream date” with the lucky bidder to win their time. Citizens who were long married and not interested in romance were even opening their wallets to bid for the cause. 

In the third row of bidders, just behind Lady Yuna’s party, the former Praetor of New Yevon drummed his fingers on the bidding paddle laid over his lap. He really had no interest in the proceedings. He was quite content with his life in Bevelle, alternating peacefully between caring for the sick and serving as advisor to the local government. He didn’t need to be wasting time or resources on this kind of frivolity. But Paine had asked, and he knew from long experience that she wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important on some level. At least he’d managed to talk her out of auctioning him off, though. He didn’t think he could bear being put up on stage like a piece of meat. It was bad enough watching the others trot about the stage as it was.

Until, of course, the one eligible bachelor he hadn’t even considered took the stage.

“How you doing, Spira!?” Gippal was nothing if not personable, and Baralai didn’t miss the excess of enthusiasm as his friend took over the microphone. People all over the rows of bidders were a-twitter, hands flying to paddles as the Al Bhed gave a rousing speech to highlight his most charming qualities. The spectating crowd was going wild. 

The bidding, appropriately led by Rikku’s quick mouth, was fast and intense. The amount of gil being called quickly surpassed five digits, climbing ever higher. Gippal grinned through it all, interjecting with quips meant to tempt even greater expenses. Baralai’s throat felt uncomfortably tight as he watched the whole thing unfold. It wasn’t that he and Gippal were still on the poor terms they’d been prior to Vegnagun. Quite the contrary, they’d been in almost constant communication since all that had ended. He just hadn’t realized until quite that moment how much the thought of his friend taking anyone out on a date—even in the name of a worthy cause—was going to bother him. It almost felt like he was losing something.

A hush fell over the crowd. The bright machina screens projecting numbers as the bid climbed blinked twice and then displayed a six-digit figure in brilliant pink. Gippal, for once, appeared utterly speechless. Even Rikku took a moment to recover her cheerful auctioneer persona before her bubbly voice was asking the crowd for challenging bids. The audience didn’t seem eager to give her what she was looking for, though, and it wasn’t long before she declared the winner.

That was the moment when Baralai finally realized it was his own hand holding the winning paddle.


	2. Chapter 2

The dates for every auction had been pre-arranged with a time and location inside Luca. To keep it more personal, the volunteers themselves had given as much input as they could so the date would be of a fitting style. Which would explain why Baralai found himself fidgeting nervously outside a boisterous gaming arcade in the city’s brightly colored Al Bhed district. There was a card in his pocket with the details of how his evening was to begin, but he didn’t need to look at it again. In the last few hours alone he’d read it so many times that the thick paper was beginning to wear thin.

Gippal hadn’t come to find him after the auction. Not that he was supposed to, of course, but he had thought that his friend might come to poke fun at him for his wildly out of character actions. He’d been so sure of an impending visit that he hadn’t been able to sleep. It continued throughout the day as he’d paced his hotel room like a nervous teenager. 

“Pretty sure you’re supposed to go inside.”

Baralai jumped at the familiar voice, but recovered quickly. “Perhaps I’m having second thoughts.”

“Buyers remorse after all the effort I went to?” his friend snorted, sliding around him and into his line of sight. “That stings, Baralai.” He looked… there weren’t words. His usually grease-stained clothes were gone, replaced by clothes with lighter fabric and clean lines. There was quite a bit of chest on display from the shirt’s deep vee. Baralai had to swallow hard before he could come up with a response.

“I didn’t think playing children’s games took effort to plan.” He was unreasonably proud that his voice didn’t tremble in the slightest. 

Gippal scoffed, then threw a companionable arm around his shoulder. Either he didn’t notice the shiver the contract sent through Baralai’s body or he was polite enough not to comment. Baralai suspected the first because he couldn’t imagine a world where Gippal wouldn’t take every available opportunity to give him hell. 

“I’ll tell you now like I’ve told you a dozen times before: you have got to learn to have a little fun.” The blonde steered him toward the doors of the arcade and gave a friendly wave to the girl behind the counter. All around them were flashing lights and cheery sounds, the whole room awash with a sort of boundless enthusiasm. Gippal led them to a machine near the back. “Now,” he began as he dropped a controller into Baralai’s hands and fed some sort of pass card into the machine, “you are going to stop doing that over-thinky crap you always do and enjoy yourself for a change.”

By the time they’d lost at the first game a few times, Gippal had managed to talk Baralai right past his own nerves and into a much more easy state of mind. By the fourth game they tried they were both laughing along to their conversations like there was nothing awkward about the evening at all. And by the time they’d exhausted themselves on the idea of games Baralai had actually forgotten what he was so nervous about in the first place. At least, until Gippal settled one hand against his lower back when they left the arcade and headed for their date’s next location. It felt like pyreflies were dancing in Baralai’s stomach as they sauntered down the street. Gippal didn’t remove his hand, and if he noticed that his companion had gone a little quiet at the prolonged contact he didn’t seem to care. His hand stayed right where he’d put it until they made their way to a quiet seafood restaurant with a deck overlooking the ocean.

They were led to a table on a more private corner of the deck surrounded by thriving plant life. There were candles lit on its surface, and Gippal ordered drinks for both of them before Baralai even had a chance to open his mouth. Suddenly it seemed that the relaxed, amiable afternoon that had put him so at ease had disappeared entirely. In an arcade with laughter and normal conversation it was easy to think of this as just a night out with his friend. There was no pretending that a dinner in this kind of atmosphere was anything less than a date.

“You know,” Gippal said after a few moments of awkward silence, peering over the top of his menu. “If I’d known you were into this sort of thing I would have made date plans ages ago.”


	3. Chapter 3

It felt like Baralai’s heart had stopped completely. There was no way he’d just heard the words he thought he’d heard. Yet, when the traitorous organ started hammering against the inside of his chest he couldn’t help but think that he had heard exactly that. His face heated as he stared across the table with wide eyes. Gippal was grinning at him while he gaped, mouth working soundlessly.

“I mean,” the blonde continued, “I always figured I was just crazy and everything was one-sided.” He set the menu to one side and leaned forward, folding his arms against the table. “I’ve been flirting for ages and you never acted like you noticed.”

The stunned silence went on for so long that their waitress returned. She settled drinks in front of them and jotted quick notes on a pad when Gippal helpfully ordered for the both of them once more. Some magically logical part of Baralai’s brain took note that his companion had remembered some of his food preferences from their journey together years before. While the food was settled his brain finally kicked into gear, helpfully replaying some of their interactions over the past few months. In hindsight, it did seem as though Gippal was around an awful lot. Perhaps he had even been a bit more  _ friendly _ than every other friend he’d ever had.

Finally, as the waitress walked away and Gippal took a long sip of his drink, Baralai’s tongue managed to loosen itself.

“If that was your idea of flirting, you could have been more obvious,” he pointed out tartly. 

Mid-drink, Gippal snorted in laughter and spent the next few minutes coughing. “If I’d been much more obvious I might have been arrested for public indecency,” he pointed out when the coughing finally subsided. “Though, I did get drunk one night and decide to serenade you shirtless.”

Baralai frowned, certain that nothing of the sort had happened. “I think I would have remembered that.”

“I’m sure you would have,” Gippal agreed. “I don’t think the lady whose balcony I climbed after mistaking it for yours will ever forget.” He spent from that moment until their food arrived lining out the tale in hysterically painful detail. While they ate, Baralai told him of the sudden onset of feelings he’d felt watching the auction proceedings and how he hadn’t even realized he’d bid until Rikku declared him the winner.

By the time they’d finished their meal they had both agreed that they were the worst sort of lovesick idiots in all of Spira.

Neither of them was particularly keen to separate once the meal was through, and they took to wandering the docks and shores of Luca. Baralai didn’t flinch when Gippal’s hand returned the small of his back this time, nor when that hand instead twined with his own. They talked about feelings and plans, but also the past and the things they’d missed while they weren’t on speaking terms. Before either of them had realized the sky began to lighten as night ticked steadily on towards morning. They stood together at the end of a pier as the blues and purples of the night became the pinks and golds of dawn.

“Well,” Gippal said as the sun’s rays began to break over the horizon. “I can’t think of a more perfect end to a first date than watching the sunrise.”

“Not an end,” Baralai insisted, shaking his head as he turned toward him. He fisted his hands in the front of Gippal’s shirt, leaning up to brush their lips together in a gentle, chaste kiss. “A beginning.”


End file.
